


A Tale of Two Soliders

by Astral_Writer



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Action, Avengers (Movie) Deviation, Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes Is Captain America, Bucky Barnes crashed the plane into the ice, Captain America: The Winter Solider AU, Child Abduction, Child Soliders, Espionage, F/M, HYDRA Steve, HYDRA is the Worst!!, Human Experimentation, Iron Man 3 Deviation, M/M, Memory Loss, Minor Bruce Banner/Natasha Romanov, NOT just a retelling of the movie, Sass, Sassy Steve, Sassy Tony, Serious Characters, Spies, Steve Rogers in the Winter Solider, Steve fell off the train, Super Soliders, Typical Marvel Cinematic Universe Level of Sass, Typical Marvel Cinematic Universe Violence, memory manipulation, reference to past abuse, sassy Bucky, so much sass, traumatic childhood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-23 11:11:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6114688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astral_Writer/pseuds/Astral_Writer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky doesn’t think about it. He grabs Steve’s shield, hoists it up, and returns fire. The way Steve swings it around, he didn’t think it would be this hard to carry. The way Steve took the last blast... Bucky didn’t see that coming either.<br/>“Bucky!”<br/>Bucky looks up and Steve's climbing out after him. And Bucky wants to yell at him to go back.<br/>“Hang on,” Steve shouts as he reaches out to him. “Grab my hand!” Buck looks up at Steve and feels the scrap of metal he’s hanging from groan, then—<br/>Steve grads his arm as the metal break away. Bucky’s never felt like such a lucky bastard in his life. Steve hauls him up next to him.<br/>“T-thanks, Stevie,” he huffs, his limbs shaking.<br/>Steve huffing like he’s having his old asthma attacks, “Don’t mention—”<br/>The ominous groan makes Buck feel like the other shoe just dropped.<br/>Steve shoves him hard. Bucky cracks his head on the floor of the train. It smarts something awful as he pushes himself back up to his ass, just in time to—<br/>“Steve, NO!”  </p><p>What if Steve fell off the train? What if HYDRA had Captain America? What if they were able to unlock the serum's secrets from Steve’s DNA? What’s to stop them from making their own army...?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue & Reckless Escape

**Author's Note:**

> If you're still reading, Please continue. I know I hold my own prejudice against fics with OCs, but this fic means a lot to me and I just couldn't leave it on my hard drive to rot. The start of this all is a picture of Steve as a HYDRA agent and that started me questioning, "What if HYDRA took Steve instead of Bucky?". This lead to a lot a research about the comic book origins of characters and that lead to plot design and then I had a story. But I didn't want to just rewrite the Winter Solider movie. I wanted something new. Then I remembered a character I had and her band of chaotic associates from a story I wrote way back, but dropped because I thought I sucked at SciFi stories (truth is, I just hate researching my shit). This was never intended to be a romance story... at least not in the typical sense. It's more about clinging to people and needing that humanity to hold yourself together. But YES, they eventually ended up together as I worked on this. The story ended up being equal parts about Steve and his self hate and eventual acceptance of what happened to him While he was the Winter Solider, and about a *ahem* girl that's been through the wringer and needs to learn to trust again. Please enjoy it. It was a lot of fun writing.

**Prologue**

“Добрый вечер. А как тебя зовут?”

The words are translated. Her subtle accent is noted and based on the type of formal speech patterns she uses, the specific region of Russia she's from and her social class are determinable. Her stature is short. She holds herself ceremoniously with an over emphasized detached from the event and people around her, defined further by the way she holds tension in her jaw and shoulders. The subdued way she shifts her weight between her feet suggest uneasy. She’s dressed as formally as the other people in attendance, but she is not one of the guests. He knows all the faces of the hosting party as well and she does not match a match for any of them. That leaves few options. She is not one of the caterers, not a member of the security detail, and not part of the help. She must be a greeter hired for the occasion, and at last minute, because she is not one of the faces he memorized for this mission.

Her eyes roam slowly over him, from his head to the leather shoes he was ordered to wear. Her eyes dart over the agent with him in a quick, dismissive scan. There are minuscule changes in her facial muscles that appear quite obvious to him from the adverse change to her eyes, to the subtle arch in the line of her mouth.

‘ _She envies her._ ’

Observation halts, inspection turns inward to seek out the source of the conjecture. Nothing unusual detected. It must be remnants of older programming. The notion itself is unfounded, of no crucial value. It is deemed irrelevant.

Instead, his attention is diverted back to a more pressing issue. The woman asked a question; she asked for their names. He doesn’t have a predetermined reply and was not trained to respond to that question. He remains on standby, ready to translate the next words he must—

“Меня зовут Маргарита Иваневич Рогачёвa.”

The agent at his side steps in front of him. She has a strong, apparent confidence. She carries herself effectively and her tone is the perfect combination of formal, easy, and to a degree, affronted. Her cover is well rehearsed and indisputable.

“Я хотел бы представить вам моего мужа, Степан Иосифовна Рогачёв,” she says as she gestures to him. She turns around and grabs one of his hands, weaving her fingers between the fabric of his gloves, pulling him along with her. He does not resist.  As translated, she introduced them as Margarita Ivanevich Rogashova and Stepan Iosifovna Rogashov, her husband. A husband would follow her lead.

He looks down at the top of her head. Strands of her hair are clinging to the fibers of the tux where she had leaned her head on her arm before. There’s a sweeping motion to the narrow dress trialing on the floor that keeps it out from under his feet. There’s too much rhythm to the way it moves for the action to seem unintentional. She speaks more, exchanges pleasantries with the greeter, further with another couple the woman introduces them to. Her head swishes around and she looks up at him with a loving gaze to reinforce their relationship to onlookers.

Only because he’s been observing her, their eyes meet. Her face is painted up: her lips red, her eyes smoky, and her teeth white. There’s something in her eyes though that does match her spotless performance. The grey in her eyes seems tainted by something dark and penitent.

‘ _What is her name?_ ’

The question flickers passed his thoughts while he keeps up his steady surveillance of their surroundings. The question is unnecessary. The mission is the only priority. He is never given any names: not of the man of agents assigned to work with him, not of his targets, and none of the handlers. Names are not a necessity for the performance of the mission.

The current assignment is to assist the agent and protect her if she requires it. Otherwise, force has been ill-advised due to the public nature of the mission. He knows the layout of the building, the floorplans, and the guests attending. He knows the staff and security agents hired for the event. He has learned their shift schedules and their individual weaknesses.

The question does not occur to him again until they’ve waded through the party’s guests, made it passed the dense security service guarding the perimeter, and have broken into the labs on the company’s research and development floor. The agent has since dropped her cover. She weaves quickly between the lab stations with familiarity of the floorplan and walks over to the main computer station no longer giving him any of the attention she dedicated to him downstairs. She turns on the screen and immediately starts typing.

He walks around the station to stand behind the monitor so he can retain a watchful eye over her and still observe their exit over her head. The light of the computer screen bounces off her eyes. Her lips are parted and moving rapidly. She mutters to herself as she’s working. Even with his enhanced hearing he cannot distinguish words. She looks drastically younger under the dim lighting in the labs compared to the mature, older woman she was portraying in the lobby below.

She shifts around constantly as she works. Her long hair manages to fall in her face every time. In an abrupt display of vulnerability, she groan-screeches and fists her hand in her hair. She rips it off and tosses the now apparent wig onto the desk space besides her. Her head is covers in a thin layer of hair just a quarter of an inch long. She rubs her hand over it roughly before she goes back to what she is doing. If anything she mutters louder. The words are still unclear, muddled together. She’s hunching her shoulders more as she works. He watches and that question interjects again.

“What’s your name?”

The steady rhythm of keys ceases abruptly. He watches her head bob up, her eyes wide and taking him in. He is still. His system is agitated and trying to analyze why he has engaged. He is not supposed to interact with the agent; it was a direct order from his handler. He and the agent are both aware of their roles. The mission should not require further communication between the two of them. He is not to engage for anything beside the most extenuating circumstances. There is no reason for him to override an official order.

—But

All of a sudden looking at her makes something else speak up, something that does not exist within his normal functions... It speaks in the agent’s voice. Different images and sounds start flashing just behind his eyes. He reaches out and seizes one of them.

“ _N-no—Stop_ ,” she’s laughing. “ _Heh. Hey now, just stop already!—_ ”

He sees images, her face. It’s not the made up one that looked to him downstairs. It’s a plain one, but there’s a smile that stretches her face wide. The agent sounds different in these images than she did before. Her laugh carries more and there’s a small crinkle above the bridge of her nose. Her hair is longer in these images than it is right now. It’s shaggy and reaches her ears, falling just above her eyes.

“ _This is how you hold them_ ,” she  ~~says~~ _said_  by way of demonstration, her hand holding two narrow sticks between her fingers and tapping them effortlessly. He hears another sound that’s deeper and reverberating. He stalls. It takes him a moment to recognize the sheer foreign nature of it for what it is: laughter... coming from  _him_. This is a  _memory_.

He doesn’t have memories. They aren’t part of the programming. These are alien to him. They don’t fit in with his existing settings.

She’s still looking up at him as he pulls himself out of it, but her eyes move to study, now contemplative and searching. Then her attention returns to the computer screen, typing as before.

‘ _Appropriate response._   _She is completing the mission. She is not to engage._ ’ He processes this, but as he takes another sweep of the room, that changes.

“Aelita.” It’s louder, clearer than anything she’s said since they’ve entered the room. His eyes turn to her and her peeking up at him without turning her head away from the monitor. Her eyes go back as she say, “My name is Aelita.”

Her name triggers more of those half-formed images, those memories. These results are not supposed to happen. His mouth starts moving before he as any conscious awareness that it’s happening.

“I remember you.”

There’s a sudden hitch in her typing. It is the only reaction he detects. There isn’t any further acknowledgement. He’s already broken the rules of his interaction with her. Now  _twice_. What other reason does he have to hold back?

“Why do I remember you?”

She stays muted and he starts to feel like she’s ignoring him  _and since when does he feel anything?_  The pause in the room grows immensely before she speaks again.

“Because I didn’t redact it,” she declares. When he looks at her, her posture is suddenly straighter, her head held higher, and when her eyes are on him as they move back and forth between the computer and where he’s standing, he see resistance in them.

He doesn’t understand. “That’s against procedure.” She is not to act against her training or what the handlers tell her. Her defiance is  ~~bracing~~ _dangerous_. It will get her killed.

She rolls her eyes and groans. Her reaction is juvenile and disarming. “I know that.”

She steps back from the console and brings her foot up to steady it on the desk, hiking the skirt up. He’s suddenly at war with himself with some impractical sense of modesty. The mission dictates that he keep an eye on the agent, but he is forcing himself not to look away as she pulls the skirt up higher and removes a black rectangular shape from where it’s strapped to her upper thigh. Propriety is of no relevance to the mission. He can’t decipher why his face feels warmer.

She pulls a cord out from inside the device and plugs it into the side of the screen. Her hands move quickly over the keys again and then with one last glance at the screen, she steps away from the compute altogether. “I know it’s against procedure,” she says walking over to the glass cabinets lining one of the far walls of the lab. “I just did it anyway.”

As he watches the  ~~girl~~ agent, he’s bombarded with more memories. He wonders why now? Why not earlier in the lobby? Why not in the vehicle when they were enroute? The images come with emotional tags. There are many of them. In some she appears younger even, hurt, or scared. Laughing, crying, bleeding, fighting: all of it is this agent...

She moves from one glass case to another, the dress swishing along the sterile tile floor. She stops in front of one of them and pulls a device from the bustline of her dress. Another cord, she plugs it into the lock on the case.

The swarm of images are causing his head to throb. The pain is starting to exceed tolerable levels and is manifesting in his visible reactions. He rubs his temple, closes his eyes, forcefully suppressing them. “The handlers need to know about this,” he grits.

When he opens his eyes again, her face is in his, proximity too close. She should not be able to move this fast; she should not be capable of this level of stealth. His hearing is superior. He should have been able to detect her movements. Analyst, the pain is more distracting then he originally assessed.

“I can erase this conversation,” she says darkly. “The handlers can’t know.” She is tightly wound muscles and a fierce aura; he actually takes a step back. When he registers his retreat, something ripples through his system.

He is a weapon. He’s an assassin. He doesn’t know how to feel fear. She is not a physical threat to him. He is stronger and he is faster. He can snap her small bones without difficulty. She is breaking procedure and must be reported.

But to his own surprise, he just nods. He knows he will not make mention of what has transpired between them. Though the agent does not have authority over him, he listens to her. Questioning why leads to another throb from his head, and he stop inquiry. This entire situation’s likely be redacted anyway, whether she does it or not. That’s how all missions go.

She watches his face as she leans back. As she turns to the cabinets, the darkness in her eyes is still there. Her heels under the dress clack along the floor with forceful intention.

He stands near the computer, eyes solely on her. Watching their exit has never seemed less like a priority. The danger in her eyes has caused a fault in his systems. His pulse is accelerating as a result.

She fiddles with the cabinet some more until it opens. “You need to remember me,” she says finally. She catches his eyes when she looks over her shoulder at him. “That’s the only way either of us is gonna to be free.”

She produces a large flattened bag from the cabinet and walks back over to him. Even as she hands it to him, he’s already shrugging off his tuxedo jacket and opening the pocket sown into the lining along the back. He stores the package inside the lining and put the jacket back on.

Meanwhile, the agent steps back in front of the computer. She finishes whatever business she has with it and straps the device back to her leg. She rights her skirt, replaces the wig, and quickly finger combs it as he steps up beside her. She takes his arm and the two of them make their way out of the building unsuspectingly with over 20 billion dollars’ worth of the latest in synthetic skin research.

 

* * *

** Chapter ONE: Reckless Escape **

It’s cold. As systems comeback online that’s the first thing he registers. His body is experiencing rapid shivers. There’s a tightness in his chest constricting air flow, frigid air feels like it’s cutting his sinuses. He moves to open his optical sensors, but his eyelashes are frozen together. Incapable of visually observing where he is remains unacceptable. He has yet to regain function of his organic appendages, but he feels the nerves slowly waking up in his left shoulder. His left arms should be operable shortly.

He tries again at opening his eyes. His breath is warmer than the air around him, if just barely, and he uses it to melt the ice around his eyelids.

His eyes flutter open, shaking away the linger ice from them. The lighting is dim, almost nonexistent, but his eyes are capable of picking up even the faintest light sources. There’s enough to see by. The first thing he sees is not the confined, coffin-like space he’s trapped in, the frost and ice clinging to the metal. What he sees first is the window directly in front of him and a note tapes to the other side. Message: “Operation Save our genius and Screw HYDRA over”.

 

The moment the words register, his consciousness is no longer in that frozen box. The cold sensation has been pushed far away until it is almost to a tolerable level. He’s in a metaphysical room with beige walls, white molding, and thick white carpeting. He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor watching his fingers comb through the carpet.

“ _Steve? Steve!_ ” His face is seized between two smaller hands and guided to a girl’s. She's sitting across from him in a similar position. “ _Steve, focus. This is important._ ” Her hands drop to her lap.

“ _I’m trying Aelita—_ ” _His voice._

He barely recognizes it. He hasn’t heard it in an indeterminable amount of time. It’s softer than he thought it was. His tone’s light in a way that isn’t consistent with his normal programming. “ _I still don’t understand what we’re doing._ ” He can almost hear the smile in his own voice.

“ _It’s not the point. I need you to be quiet for a moment and focus on my face. Don’t—_ ,” her face breaks into a smile and the words come out under forced sternness. “ _—don’t interrupt, okay._ ”

“ _Got it_ ,” he says, laughter tapering off.

She rolls her eyes at him, but then her body language changes, going from laxed and easy to militant and business. She places her hands on her knees and her eyes meet his dead on, like she’s looking through the lens of a camera and not at the man in front of her.

“ _Focus solider_.” It’s an order. His eyes lock onto hers and something changes in his demeanor. “ _There isn’t going to be a lot of time and this mission is the only one that matters. You have received the message that’s activated this_ _assignment. You have to break out of cryo. Your mission is to find me. I should be enroute to the Vita lab on sub floor 5. You are not to be stopped. If intercepted, you take them out in the least amount of time you can waste. I want you—Pfft!_ ” she bites her lower lip to hold back laughter that immediately follows. He’s laughing too. “ _Dammit Steve!_ ” she snorts and hits his leg harder than he thinks she meant to. “ _Don’t stick your tongue up your nose, asshole_ ,” she tries to growl, but it’s not quite hitting it. “ ** _This. Is. Serious._** ” she says leaning back on her arm and punctuating each word with a kick to his shin.

“ _Okay, okay_ ,” he says, laughter still in his voice as he raises his hands up to surrender.

“ _You have to find me as soon as possible. Once you’ve secured me, we are to vacate the premise as soon as possible. That’s at least five floors up. Once we are outside, I’ll give you the next set of instructions._ ”

“ _Why aren’t you giving them to me now?_ ”

She sighs and runs her hands over her thin layer of hair. “ _The less you remember is better, okay? You trust me?_ ” she asks back. This sounds like a casual question, she looks at him with eyes that need this confirmation, that need to know he’s with her.

His right hand moves to the side of her face, cups her jaw, and all earlier absurdity has dissolved. His thumb strokes her cheek. “ _Completely._ ” She puts her hand over his and closes her eyes for a moment as she presses her face into it.

When she opens her eyes, she’s serious again and his hand retreats from her face. “ _Now_ ,” she says straightening her back and rolling her shoulders. “ _If... if it’s too late_ ,” she looks stuck for a moment, like she’s not sure she can go on, only she fight though it, whatever is holding her back. “ _If it’s too late and I’m already gone, I want you to initiate the CLEAN HOUSE protocol—_ ”

“ _Aelita_ ,” he hears himself. He sounds concerned, cautious.

“ _You are to eliminate as many of them as possible. Kill all of them. Go down fighting, please!_ ” her voice breaks on the last part and his arms reach out to her, but she raises her hand and he stops. “ _Do you understand your mission?_ ” she asks.

He sighs. “ _Find you—_ ” he starts, but she shakes her head.

“ _Find who?_ ” she asks, a broken attempt at a banterish tone.

When he starts again, his voice has lost its easiness. “ _Find candidate Alpha Iota gen three sub seventy two... Aelita_ ,” he adds her name quickly and earns from her a beautiful smirk. “ _Liberate her, and escape_ together _, or destroy everything I can get my hands on_ ,” he says, flexing both his organic and his cybernetic hands. “ _Pretty much it’s save our genius and screw HYDRA over._ ”

 _“That a boy—_ ”

 

He’s suddenly back in the frozen box, the paper note’s still hanging outside the glass fluttering in a draft he can’t otherwise detect. He has his mission now and he knows what he has to do next. He flexes the fingers of the left arm. The nerve endings have thawed just enough. The rest of his body is coming along grudgingly slow.

He pulls at the restrains binding him to the stabilizing platform. With a powerful jerk he feels them crack, compromised by the cold. Pulls at again and it snaps. He left arm is free. Reeling his fist back, he hears the whirl of the small mechanical parts inside as they windup. He lets it loose, smashing it through the glass portal and shattering it.

The warm air floods the area and he breathes in deep. The air warms him faster from the inside out. He breaks the straps on his other limbs and focuses briefly on assessing the door’s structural integrity. Plan forming, he leans back, bracing against the stabilizing platform and coils his legs up to his chest.

Just like punching through the portal, he lets the energy loose, springs off the platform, and applies enough pressure to rip the metal door off the wall. Momentum sends him across the room. He lands in a crouch, pushing to his feet and forcing his way passed the numbness still gripping to his other appendages.

The walls are bare, with metal structures pushed up against them. In the center, just feet from where he stands, is a chair. A dark twisted arching metal frames the chair otherwise bolted to the floor. Screens, wires, and a table covered with medical instruments are connected to the frame and chair. It all has subconscious influence on him; he’s physically cringing away from it. He glares as something cold settles in his stomach, but he has a mission. He has a priority. He turns away from the chair, towards the door.

He has to get to the fifth floor Vita labs, needs to find out where he is and how much ground he has to cover. He opens the door and observes the hall. It appears mostly uninhabited. He moves to advance on the opening and takes off at sprint, his bare feet hitting the floor hard, looking for the stairwell. He’s turned down three halls before he runs into anyone. The agent’s shocked to see him and reaches for his sidearm, hands fumbling at his waist.

He never stops running, charges the agent and some disconnected part of him gets a strange kick from the terrified look on the man’s face. Bullets bounce of the floor and walls. He shoulders the agent hard into the wall that leaves an impression. The body slumps and slides to the floor behind him.

The next agents he encounters aren’t as lucky. They fire at him and he uses his left arm to defect like a shield. He punches first one agent in the face, throwing their head into one of the flanking walls and using their firearm to return fire on the other. As both bodies hit the floor, he finally finds the door leading to the stairwell.

He’s on sub level 9. He starts ascending the stairs. Halfway between sublevels 7 and 6 the alarms begin blaring and the lights turn red, flashing. Bullets rain down from above. He presses himself against the wall running options through his head. He springs over the rail to the other side, hauling himself up. The agents along the stairs freeze for a moment when they see him. Another opening, he springs up to their level, and fires at them with his stolen handgun until the magazine is empty. He throws the gun at another agent and tosses still standing bodies over the side of the guardrail.

At level 5 a barricade of bulletproof shields supported by human bodies is thrown up on their way to the stairwell. They seem unprepared for him. They didn't expect him to stop on this floor, but they’re standing between him and the rest of his mission. Taking half a second to process the situation, his mind adjusts tactics and his body dawns a wider stance that feels second nature, his left arm in front of him like a shield. He charges and the agents behind their shields panic briefly before moving tighter together and discharging their firearms.

His left arm pings as bullet ricochet. Most never make contract with the rest of him. Two graze him and one hit is a clean shot to his right thigh; the bullet goes all the way though. He won’t have to worry about taking time to pull the bullet out before his healing factor heals around it. He barrels though the barricade. Once through, he doesn’t slow down. He throws jabs and kicks at solar plexuses, shoulders, knees, and ribs, feeling the bones crack under body armor. He’s efficient as instructed, focused on reading signs, locating the Vita lab. The agents scramble to get back in formation. It’s apparent they don’t know what his initiative is, preferable.

When he finds the Vita lab, he still has agents all over him. He shoves the one clinging to his right arm and kicks another through the doors to the lab. The agent becomes a projectile and slams into the table like machine in the middle of the room.

And there she is.

Her eyes are on him the moment he steps through those doors and for a flash she’s all he sees. He feels distress rolling off her in waves. She's struggling, pulls with her whole body against the restrains binding her to the table. She’s been immobilized, her mouth gagged with some kind of guard. The room is full of men standing around the perimeter. They are not agents. They don’t pose a direct threat.

Another agent from the hall comes at him from behind. He catches the agent’s face in his hand shoves him backwards into a metal cart baring medical supplies. The associated crash is just noise as he approaches the strange structure she’s strapped to.

The men in the room are yelling, some at him and others calling for reinforcements. They are not important. His primary objective is to secure her.

He tries to break the bindings and is temporarily disarmed when he can’t break them with sheer force alone. She struggles around the gag, saliva rolling down her chin. He goes for the clasps and works with them until he’s release the restraint on her neck and moves to her biceps and then wrists. When her first arm is free, she assists him, forgetting the gag in her urgency.

She jumps off the table, her legs a bit unsteady under her, but she rips the rubber guard out. Most of the men have evacuated the room, but he can hear the voices and tread of more agents in the distance. She’s looking at him when he turn to her, her eyes are so bare, open, and flooded with genuine relief that shakes something at his core.

She opens her mouth as agents rush through the open doors, then closes it tightly. His body tense and he takes a fighting stance again. She rips at something in his peripheral and hits his left arm hard with something small. There’s a sudden jolt up the nerves in his shoulder and the arm becomes a dead weight at his side. He looks at his arm with large eyes and then at the girl. She’s biting her lower lip, her eyes screaming sorry. One of her dog tags seems adhered to his arm. He feels another pulse runs through it and his fingers twitch without him. “I had to,” she says, her voice raw.

He doesn’t question it. Whatever she did, it was necessary. He knows that like he know she’s his mission. He nods and the corners of her mouth quirk up in a smile her eyes don't feel.

The agents attack and he can’t spare her anymore of his focus. He is already down one arm and the mission is not over until he gets the two of them out. He fights hard, his body adapting to the change in his center of gravity. It’s more problematic now. He’s constantly compensating for his left side and the agents are taking full advantage, getting more trikes in. There is a knife now in his right thigh, hilt visible through the fabric of his pants. It missed the main artery only because he shifted his weight at the last minute. It throbs.

Another agent moves in during his quick assessment. He reacts by trying to shield himself with the arm that is no longer responding. He realizes too late, is about to receive further damage, when the girl appears and block for him. She attacks another agent with a hard kick to their ribs, wraps her arms around one of theirs and uses there weight to throws them. He’s moving again, covering her as she covers him.

They neutralize enough opponents to make a break for the lab exit. Another agent rushes them from the side with his gun aimed to fire. He changes angle and barrels into the agent, taking his gun as he throws him into other agents still trying to get back to their feet.

He tosses the gun over his shoulder. The girl is already prepared to receive it. She checks it as they run down the hall. She takes lead as she start taking different corners, not heading for the stairwell that would have been his first option. She leads them to a set of double doors. They open automatically to an elevator and he pauses long enough to throw her a look.

She’s already inside, crouching in front of the screen in the wall and tapping along its surface rapidly. He doesn’t ask what she’s doing. He somehow already knows she’s overriding their systems and issuing her own program. He’s stopped questioning how he knows these things. Since he woke up and got his assignment, the process has gone completely against all his original programming—

But that doesn’t matter because he finally has a mission that everything inside him is screaming is right. He looks at her crouched on the floor. He knows her.

As the elevator starts moving, she stands up and walks over to him. Something is off about their assent. The elevator is moving slower than it does naturally. “Gimme a hand,” she says gesturing to the ceiling.

He bends his left leg at the knee—his still good leg—and offers his right hand. She climbs up him and pops out the center ceiling panel to climbs out. Once she’s cleared, he jumps up and pulls himself up with his good arm. She’s quick to assist and helps haul the rest of him up.

As they go ascend, the numbers of the floors get smaller. The elevator shaft is dark, lit by orange fluorescent lights along the walls. She stands next to him and he feels her nervousness. He keeps observing her, noting all her physical reactions, committing them to memory.

He’d called her “Aelita” before. She seems smaller here. Her black shirt is hanging loose on her shoulders. She watches the doors as they pass them, the lights casting long shadows across her face and highlighting the dark hollows under around her eyes.

“The next floor,” she warns, coiling into a crouch. He does the same. As the elevator approaches sub level 2, the doors slide open and she jumps; so does he. They both tuck and roll. He’s the first to his feet, moving to check the adjoining halls—clear—and he looks back over his shoulder. “Orders?”

She steps back to the elevator and leans through the opening and looks up the shaft. “We climb,” she says, reaching out into the shaft and disappearing before his eyes.

Fear grips him as he tears back to the elevator doors. Hand catching the door so hard it groans under his grip as he swings out into the shaft, eyes attempting to find her.

She clings to the rungs of a ladder built into the shaft wall. “C’mon, Steve,” she shouts, curling her fingers of her out stretched hand and willing him to come with her.

The name makes him stop. He’d heard her use it in the memory, but he was disconnected to it then.  Now she’s looking to _him_ and he feels it click into place. He reaches for the nearest rung, but catches himself. He tosses a look down at his left shoulder and the hunk of metal hanging from it. “How?”

Her eyes flit to his arm and back to his face. “I... wh—Ah shit,” she spits. “I didn’t –,” she looks around panicky like the answers are going to be written there on the walls. “We need...We need rope or...” she says decisively.

She gets quickly back inside the doors. “Only got minutes—,” she mutters, treading down the hall and checking the same corner he stood at before. She slips around it and he pads after her quickly. She’s fast, stops at a door that looks just like the others. Inside is a utility closet. She walks over to the shelves and starts rifling through. He walks passed her and grabs a coil of thick black cord.

“This?” he offers.

She twists around and when she makes it out, she nods emphatically. Back at the elevator shaft she ties the cord around her core and hands the other end over to him. The longer he’s around her the more and more her actions have the means to throw him. He ties it around himself as she starts back into the elevator shaft and this time he follows.

She climbs with experience and bares his weight when he reaches for the next rung and despite their drawbacks they’re flanking either side of the elevator doors for the main floor within four minutes. “The elevator hopefully led them to the roof.” She speaks softly, panting still. “We get past the fence, into the trees, and we just keep running.”

He nods and pushes the elevator doors open; she pulls out the gun from where she’d tucked it into the waistband of her pants, releasing the safety. They enter a lobby and the woman manning the front desk starts when she sees them. Aelita trains the gun on her as they make it across the open space to the exit. The receptionist only hesitates for a moment before reaching for another firearm somewhere under the desk and firing at Aelita. Aelita returns fire and manages to hit the woman in the arm. Steve grabs her before she can fire again and throws her over his good shoulder.

“Ahh—! St-steve, what the Hell?!”

“No time,” he grunts. The knife in his leg is still bothering him, but the bloods clotted by now, and it’s better to leave it until they are safe.

Outside, he sees the fences. More alarms are blaring, but he’d be more surprised if they weren’t. “Hold on,” he grunts.

“Wha-What?” but he feels her fingers dig into the bare skin on his back.

He rushes the fence and uses momentum to get him two thirds of the way up and then sheer force of will to get them over. He can feel the tension wound though her body as he lands hard.

“Put me down. We’ll move faster if we’re both running,” she says through clenched teeth.

“What’s next?” he says as he set’s her down. The two of them take off as bullets begin pelting the ground near their bare feet.

“Clothes,” he hears her breathe as they reach the trees. “Then we need to get that detonator out of your arm before my EMP’s effects wear off.”

The fact that there’s a bomb in his arm should bother him more than it does. “How do we accomplish that?”

He hears her smirk just passed the trees. “I know of this guy.”     

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 

 

“Sir?”

“Yeah, J?”

Tony takes another draught from his coffee and put the mug back on the counter. He’s sure he’s just going to flip through these next two pages. He’s come to suspect the entire document is an extensive whining pity-fest on paper. The AI doesn’t respond immediately and the pause is long enough to be too long. When JARVIS hesitates, it’s never a good thing. Tony looks up from where he’s read about “ _lack of good materials_ ”.

“My scans suggest there are two intruders in your private lab, Sir—”

Tony almost loses his coffee. “What!”

He subsequently drops the paperwork Pepper gave him this morning from the R&D labs in Malibu and pivots towards his private elevator. “JARVIS, how come I’m only now hearing about this?” Just last night he finished running the diagnostics on all his newest updates for the security protocols he’d installed back in January 2013 during the overhaul. Everything needed to be redesigned after what happened to the Malibu mansion and the Mandarin.

JARVIS already has the elevator doors open and waiting for him. “My apologies, Sir. They only just appeared on my scans. Up until that point, they did not exist?”

“Did they just teleport in there, J, ‘cause that what it sounds like you’re suggesting.” Tony knew he is being an ass, but he’s about done with people breaking into his home without so much as a curtsy call first,  _seriously_.

JARVIS conveniently brings up the live surveillance feed from Tony’s lab. “They appear to be unarmored, Sir. Would you have me prepare the Mark XLIV?”

“Put a hold on that one, JARVIS.” Tony rolls his shoulders, mentally feeling out the different cybernetic links at his disposal. Ever since Killian forced his little Extermis virus on him in a “ _You-fix-this-or-it-will-kill-you-too_ ” kind of situation—which he not only found a fix for the self-explosions, but actually unlocked a new little trick to it while under the heat of the gun—he’d come to have a more intimate relationship with his tech.  His new Extremis allowed him to have a direct cybernetic interface with almost all standing technology. Things like the telepresence headset he came up with?  _A thing of the past_. His abilities were to the point he talking to JARVIS wasn’t necessary anymore; everything could be accomplished it with his mind. But face it. How is any man that doesn’t have a riveting back and forth with his AI Tony Stark? Tony ~~was a serious glutton for punishment~~  had been itching to give his powers more test runs in the field.

“Should I make Dr. Banner aware of the situation?”

“Nah, no need to get Brucy’s heart rate racing. I’ve kind of gotten attached to the new drywall.”

“Certainly, Sir.”  _See?_  Imagine how less entertaining it would be without the sassy AI?

 Watching the feed, the “Intruders” look like typical street thugs—all dark, drawn up hoods, dirty jeans, and brooding posture—things not to make a call by. They had somehow gotten passed his security systems and JARVIS’s scanners so they weren’t typical  _anything_. Even before the elevator doors open, both pairs of eyes in the room shoot up to meet him.

“I’d like to know how a couple of punks got in my lab.” After a beat, “God, did I just say ‘Punks’? I’ve been hanging around that old-timer too much. I need hipper friends,” he says exasperatedly.

A quick glance over the lab, Tony can’t directly tell they’ve touched anything yet. According to the feed, before he showed up, they looked like they were just loitering. The smaller one of the two moves first, pushing off the bench they’d been leaning against.

“It got your attention,” she says. “I’ll tell you whatever you want, Mr. Stark, but you have to help my friend first.”

Her “friend” is built like a tank. He’s almost as big as their part-time residential alien space-viking and that’s saying something. The sweatshirt he’s wearing is straining around his too broad shoulders like he’s one flex away from ripping it at the seams. The guys beard alone would have probably landed him in Thor’s good graces. His scruff could shame a lumberjack.

“I don’t do the negotiation thing outside the bedroom.”

She tosses her hood back and  _Shit!_  She was a regular skinhead. She could pass as Ripley understudy. From the look on her face, Tony’s bedroom comment threw her.

“What? I... His arm is damaged,” she says turning her body towards her partner’s. “We need your help.” Giving the guy another look over, his left arm does appear to be hanging from his shoulder, but the guy’s just standing there, cool as a cucumber. He doesn’t seem nearly as upset about it as his girlfriend.

And because he can’t honestly help himself, “I may have a couple of PHDs, but I’m not that kind of doctor.”

“Did I say I needed a doctor? I need an engineer that specializes with anatomic robotics.” When Tony arches an eyebrows at her, her friend reaches over his head and pulls the sweatshirt— _Muscles like those_ have _to be artificial!_ At least it’s apparent the arm is. And God, Tony could fall in love all over again with that arm. ‘ _Sorry Babe_ ,’ he thinks to himself. ‘ _Move on over, you got some competition here._ ’ Is he drooling?

The girl has the audacity to cock her hips, cross her arms over her chest, and give him a haughty smirk.

That is how Tony Stark finds himself seduced into using his old couch in the corner of his lab—that usually serves more recreational purposes—to literally poke around inside some guy’s metal prosthetic. Which is literally a work of mechanical genius, the way the nerve ending are connected to the system and the amount of sensations the arm can pick up and send back to the brain. The design is a little rough here and there and it has way more bulk then it need, but it’s still something on par with his suits’ technology.

He feels like he’s playing a real life version of operation trying not to hit something he hasn’t touched yet and possibly hurt the guy. He would be having the time of his life if the girl wasn’t hovering over them, watching Tony like a hawk. He can’t figure if she reminds him more of a possessive lover or an anxious mama bear.

“What’s this?” he reaches for an odd piece of alloy bonded to the outside of the bicep.

Her hand comes out of nowhere and clamps down on his wrist. “Don’t Touch It!” The fact she’s  _touching_  him aside, it’s more distracting that he didn’t feel her coming. The Extremis, along with the cyberpathia, came with a healing factor and enhanced reflexes. The only people that can still get the jump on him are Romanoff—but she’s a freaking anomaly—and Mr. Stars and Spangles himself on a good day.

Not to appear ruffled, he looks between her face and where her hand has a death-grip on his arm, going for unamused. “O-kay,” he draws. “You got me. Why?”

She fidgets and the look crossing her face is mighty guilt-ridden. “It’s killing the power to his arm,” she admits. “But also stopping the explosive tracker in it from detonating.”

Tony can feel the change from remorse to fear in the grip she has on. He doesn’t need to look at the beaten look on her face. He wants to ask what kind of people put an explosive in a prosthetic limb, but he’s already quite familiar with those types. Instead he plays it off.

“That would have been nice to know before we all got comfy on the couch. I have this perfectly good Hulk containment until 12 floors down that’s going to waste because Bruce made me build it in the first place.” He plucks her fingers off of him carefully. “I promise I won’t touch the dog tag.”

She slumps down, back onto the stool she set up on the other side of the big guy between them. He’s been pretty blasé about this whole affair given it is his arm Tony’s dinking around with. “You hanging in there still, Paul Bunyan?”

Either the two of the have already adapted to the way he talks or they’re ignoring him at this point, because neither of them so much as blink. What’s the point if there’s no reaction? “You two are no fun?”

It doesn’t take long to find the tracker/explosive after removing some further paneling from the arm. It couldn’t have made it any easier if it had a note taped to it saying “I don’t belong here”. It’s obvious it was added after the arm was finished. It’s shoved between two systems and jimmy rigged to the arm’s power supply. It doesn’t even look like any of the original hardware. Extracting it was going to be a synch.

Was until the power source kicked back on. “Uh-ho.”

“w-What?” she snaps, head shooting up from dozing off. She’s been quietly sitting there looking like she constantly eight seconds passing out. It’s like she hasn’t slept in a while, probably running of fumes. Now back, she’s all anxious attention centered around Tony, like she expects everything to just go to shit.

“Uh,” he draws as he watches the arm start to rebut, the tracker as extension of it. “It’s nothing,” he flashes her his best press smile. He can fix this. _Easy_. No sense in getting her riled up. “Dum-E, grab the diffusion unit over there, would you?”

The robot’s arm whirls behind her and the quick scream she emits so suddenly “cute” that Tony pauses a moment while cutting another connecting adapter to stare at her. Dum-E, curious little reprobate that he is, has been inching his way towards them from the far side if the lab, snooping around. He’d been sitting just behind her for a while now studying her head and looking like he’s been fighting with some desire to reach out and it. The bumbling ninja apparently got the drop on her.

Dum-E whizzed off, arms swing around excitedly and seeming far too pleased with himself. He manages to knock a couple of things off other benches as he scampers off to retrieve it.

“What is  _that_ ,” she demands, eyes trailing after the nuisance, body furiously tense.

“He’s a lab assistant. Not a good one, but sometimes he gets the job done.” Tony tries for casual as he keeps cutting through the rivets and bolts securing the tracking device in place.

Her eyes stay on Dum-E as he comes back carrying the containment vessel that Tony made and keeps around for his more volatile experiments, just in case. “You made him?” she asks sounding a hint surprised and  _Hey!_

“Yeah, you could say he was one of the firsts.” He takes the unit from Dum-E. When he removes the lid, vapor rolls out. Her eyes widen then narrow and follow him even closer. He summons the suit gantlet around his hand and forearm and that really gets her to her feet, stumbling back from the stool.

Taking the last connection between the bomb and the power source, he disconnects it and shoves it in the unit in one rash movement. Dum-E closes the vessel as soon as Tony’s hands are clear. Before the vapor can begin to dissipate the containment unit lurches violently. “...Well that was dramatic.”

“That was the bomb!” she yells, eyes wide. “You activated the tracker!” she turns on him accusingly.

“I had it handled,” he says placidly, and Bruce would be so proud. “No harm, no fowl. It’s done now. That piece of fossil tech never received a charge strong enough to send a proper signal. Whoever you’re running from will never know you were here.” He’s already starting to run his own diagnostic on the arm, holo screens popping up and projecting images, making entirely sure nothing was damaged before he starts replacing the metal paneling.

“HYDRA,” she breathes.

Tony stops what he’s doing and looks up at her, the term striking a chord. “What?”

Her stance screams defensive, her shoulders shaking. “HYDRA’s after us,” she says coldly. And that’s when the big guys decided he’s done being still and throws himself to his feet. Tony’s chair wheels back and he raises his palm, repulsor ready to fire. The arm’s activated now even if it’s still open and raw bits are hanging out from the detached the explosive. He looks ready to strike out at anything and why is it always the unstable ones that Tony ends up dealing with.

“Stop!” the girl shouts fiercely and then, “Stand down solider.” She looks almost resigned as she says it. And the big guy stops, turns towards her. She looks up at him then turns to Tony again. “I’m borrowing a computer,” and walks off to look for one.

“Hey, hey! Wait just a moment there! What the Hell is going on? What do you mean HYDRA’s after you? Those occultist nutcases from World War II?”

She’s already moved on and found one of his holo tables. She shoves his stuff to the side and activates the surface interface. “Okay, that’s enough, Missy! You don’t just drop in, wave a shining piece of tech in my face, and start touching my stuff—” but the bodyguard steps between them. “And you. I just pulled an explosive out of your arm,” he says shaking the gantlet cover finger at him. “What kind of respect is this for a guy that saved your hunky ass?” The big guy just stares down at him with some of the bluest eyes he’s ever seen.

“Steve, come over here,” she calls grabbing the stool she was sitting on besides the couch. Steve(?) stares down at him for a heartbeat longer before he walks over and takes a seat.

“Seriously, What the Hell do you think you’re doing?” Tony’s abilities shutdown the holo screen and the girls starts enough that she finally stops.

“What did you do?” she says, still trying to restart the screen.

“I’m king of the lab, princess,” he smirks. “You don’t get very far without asking permission first.”

“Can I please use your computer,” she asks with some of the most honest desperation Tony’s even seen and it’s disarming.

“What do you need it for?” he says evenly, not letting it show.

“I need to fix what they did to him,” her voice sounds wet. “I promised. It’s not  _him_ until I do!”

The screen flickers back to life and the relief on her face is immediate. “What exactly did they do to him?” Tony asks, closing the distance between them. “I know a few people that have dealt with conditioning before. I could contact them for you.”

“It’s not really like that,” she says tapping a few things on the screen—and looking way to familiar with Tony’s interface for a beginner—and reaches for the hemline of her sweatshirt. “And I don’t need anyone to know about us.”

“What are you—”

She starts lifting her shirt carelessly, and Tony’s used to causal stripping, but come on! She stops before he reaches the top her breasts. If not for the black band conveniently rapped around her, she’d be flashing him... Not that he was looking. He’s a spoken for man.

She pulls out a cord tucked into the band and plugs it into one of the ports on the table. ‘ _Talk about old school_ ’. The other end of the cord is one of the oddest looking heads he’s ever seen, and he’s sometimes moonlighted as an electrician.

“Where are you going to—Wait!” She moves behind her buddy and finger combs his hair on the back of his head. “You’re not plugging that...in his head?”

She doesn’t look up from what she’s doing and inserts it into the guy’s  _skull_  before she goes back to the holo screens. “The means they had back when they started brainwashing Steve weren’t effective enough. He kept regaining himself and remembering, slowly. I’ve heard ’bout the times he’d tried to escape HYDRA before they created this method. They couldn’t erase his memories—his healing factor wouldn’t let it happen—but they could keep him from accessing them,” she mutters rapidly, her eyes moving quickly over the constant stream of coding that opens on the screen. It’s almost like she’s reading it.

Tony’s always made an effort to never look like the ignorant one in a room, catching on at least two steps faster than the other guy and—he won’t be openly mentioning it but—he’s really for a lose here. It’s like a page out of the Matrix. “These.. these are his memories?” he asks.

“Sort of,” she shrugs. “I organized it differently than how HYDRA had it. It’ll take roughly 24 hours for my software to defragment everything, but once I’ve started the process he could start remembering everything all on his own.”

“HYDRA,” Tony says slowly. “Shit. You’re serious. Fury needs to get his head out of his ass and—”    

“S.H.I.E.L.D.s been compromised,” she quips.

Tony blinks at her. “What now?”

“HYDRA has been working under the guise of S.H.I.E.L.D. almost since the beginning. You can’t tell anyone about us!” She reaches up her shirt again and pulls out a black external hard drive, slapping it down on the table and sliding it over to him. “It’s all here including their current pet project with their new helicarriers their building with your repulsor turbine designs you helped them with. Study it at your leisure,” she says turning back her streams of code. “When I’m done here, Steve and I are leaving,” and then quieter, “They’re not going to turn him into lab project again.”

Tony looks up from the hard drive and takes another look at her guy. He seen the arm and can imagine what it’s capable of. Wonder, why him—well aside from the fact that he’s huge. Something’s ringing a bell.

“Oh shit!”

“What?!” she jumps back, looking at him like he’s given her another panic attack. She follows his eyes to her friend. “What?”

“Steve? As in  _The_  Steve?!” she cocks her head at him, and it like ‘ _Fucking Chris!_ ’ “ _Captain America_  Steve?!”

Now that he sees it, he can’t unsee it. Behind all the hair it’s the same guy he grew up watching old movie reels of, the childhood hero, his partner’s dead best friend—

“What are you saying,” she says accusingly. “ _James Barnes_  is Captain America. He’s at the top of HYDRA’s shit list.”


	2. Waking Up From a Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve Starts Remembering... _Everything_. Some things he is not as eager to remember.  
>  Pov: Bucky 1, Steve 2

Bucky opens his hotel suite door and makes it all the way to the sofa before he drops. Not from Exhaustion, not in the physical sense anyway, but he is so fucking tired of Fury’s bullshit. ‘ _Compartmentalization my star-spangled ass_.’ Tony’s gonna have it when he learns what S.H.I.E.L.D.’s done with his sign of good faith.

Bucky tosses the shield to the loveseat on his left and runs his hands roughly through his hair, groaning. He needs a stiff drink. It’s in times like these that he wishes he could still get drunk. He reaches into the pocket of his uniform and roots around for his Stark phone. Sliding his finger over the lock screen, there’s another one of Tony’s ridiculous new selfies set as Bucky’s background.

“Shit,” he curses halfheartedly. Tony’s little techno mind trick was like giving a kid a candy store. Whenever Tony gets bored, stuff like this pops up. But damn, did he miss that crazy bastard. He taps on Tony’s contact. He’s only been in DC for a couple of weeks running different high level missions for Fury with Natasha. It’s not like he’s made it a secret he’d much rather be back in New York at the tower sleeping in his own bed pinning that asshole down and kissing him within an inch of his life.

He puts the phone to his ear and it rings three times before Tony’s smooth voice answers. “You’ll never guess who’s in my lab _right now_.”

“I miss you too, babe,” Bucky chuckles.

“No, seriously! Guess.”

Bucky rolls his shoulders as he pushes off the sofa, thinking about getting out of this uniform, ordering room service, taking a shower, and talking to Tony for the rest of the night.

“I said guess, Barnes,” Tony orders, and Bucky can’t stop shaking his head and smiling.

“Harrison Ford?”

“What? No. Guess again.” Bucky laughs. “But nice Star Wars reference.”

“I was thinking more Indiana Jones.”

“Asshole.”

“Sebastian Stan?”

Tony laughs on the other end. “Sexy fucker, but no, guess aga—”

“Just stop screwing around and tell him already!” Bucky hears from the background.

“A dame?” Bucky scoffs, shrugging off the harness for the shield and tossing it on the bed. He unhitches the holster for his rifle and lays it down on top of the dresser.

“You don’t understand how big this is,” he hears Tony say, but he guesses Tony to the other person now. Tony must be using JARVIS’s speakers in his lab. It picks up some kind of sigh in the background.

“Just send him a picture or something. I don’t even know what you’re freaking out about.” Bucky smirks to himself. The little lady’s giving Tony a lot of lip.

“You,” he can imagine Tony gesturing at her. “You don’t even know who you have here!” Tony’s voice comes in clear next, meaning he’s talking directly at him this time. “I’m sending you a picture, Buck. Wait for it.”

Tony cuts the call and Bucky shakes his head as he puts the phone down on the dresser. He peels off the uniform jacket and pulls the undershirt over his head. It’s been a long day between fighting pirates over the Indian Ocean, and hashing it out with Fury and his tour on what’s going to be national security. Tony’s paranoias might be justified.

A hot shower’s sounding pretty swell about now.

His phone pings and he picks it up again, smirking to himself just thinking about what kind of bullshit Tony’s sending him now. He opens the message and for a moment he honestly doesn’t get it. It takes more than a heartbeat. It takes several. Because the person looking at the camera with his head cocked to the side looking disconnected from it all is someone that he hasn’t seen in 70 years; 70 years that feel more like three. He can’t—

He pockets his phone, grabs a fresh shirt form his suitcase that he never got around to unpacking, and pauses just long enough for his leather jacket. When he gets to the door he looks back at the shield still lying on the chair. Three hours. Three hours to get back to New York if he’s speeding and weaving through traffic like a bat out a Hell. It still won’t be fast enough.  

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 

 

“ _Oh!_ ” his ma gasps. “ _What have you boys gotten yourselves into this time?_ ” She kneels down in front of him, pushes his hair out of his face, and uses the hem of her skirt to scrub at the dirt caked to the side of it where Jeffery Jenkins ground his head into the mud earlier. There’s a blooming bruise under all that filth and he’s not looking forward to explaining to her when she finds it.

“ _Jeffery started it_ ,” he says sulkily.

His ma looks him in the eyes and braces his shoulders. He winces, ‘cause Jeffery wrenched his arm behind his back something awful. “ _That Jenkins boy that lives with his aunts on 41 st street?_” She sounds like she couldn’t imagine that Jeffery Jenkins could ever be caught picking on little Cecilia Mund and her baby sister Marlene.

“ _Yeah, Mrs. Rogers, but Stevie here’s the one that finished it._ ”

“ _James Barnes. You’re supposed to be keeping Steven out of trouble_ ,” she says, chastising him.

“ _I was_ ,” Bucky says with a measure of smugness and a lopsided grin. “ _You didn’t see the other guy, Mrs. Rogers. He might just have the imprint of Stevie’s molars on his arm for the rest of his life._ ”

“ _Oh sweet mother Mary and Joseph_ ,” his ma sighs exasperatedly.            

 

It’s like a fog he’s trapped in. He sees images of sleeping on couch cushions on the floor, flying cars, chorus lines and flashy firework shows, and then Bucky strapped to a table groggy and delusional

 

“ _Hey, snagged ya this from the canteen. Morita gonna—Ah, Steve..._ ” Bucky sighs the name. “ _Are you still mooning over Carter?_ ”

“ _Hey, Buck_ ,” he says listlessly. There’s just a hint of frustration in his voice, but he can’t hold it against Bucky honestly. His pencil makes slow, broad strokes on the page. He’s not even bothering to hide who he’s sketching. Bucky already knows how far he’s gone on her.

“ _Shit, Steve. You’re, what, two feet taller and you’re still a little chicken shit when it comes to dames. Just try to sweet talk ’er already._ ”

 

                There’s images of snow and train tracks and mountain terrain, and then mention of some place he vaguely remembers called Coney Island, where he lost his corndog and whatever else he’d eaten for breakfast over a ride and a stupid dare. He remembers sharp winds, the look on Bucky’s face through the glass in an iron door, gunfire, a blast, reaching for Bucky and _grabbing_ _his hand_. He pulls and bars holding him up groan. Buck’s tossed back on the train, but then everything falls out from under him and all he can hear is “ _Steve, NO!_ ”

 

                It gets even foggier after that. He hears voices, people talking, yelling, and lots of screaming. The screaming makes his throat hurt, phantom rawness, and he distances himself from everything else. He vaguely remembers missions, being told he’s serving his country. He vaguely remembers target’s faces. He thinks it’ might be part of the serum helping him deal with the stress of it.

 

 “ _HYDRA’s wasting it’s time with you and the rest of their stupid ALPHA project. They should just being giving it to the rest of us who are already loyal. You candidates all think you’re so special, you worthless shits!_ ”

He doesn’t recognize where he is, but he doesn’t miss the hard _wack_! of the handler’s gun as he pistol-whips the technician—‘ _the too young technician_ ,’ something buried deep inside of him screams. ‘ _Children shouldn’t be fighting in the war!_ ’—across the face. She yelps, but smothers her own further cries with her hand, the other going up to her temple where the butt of the gun made contact.

“ _Now stop whining and hurry with this job!_ ” the handler shouts.

Something snaps in him, some fundamental part that can’t stand there and watch as someone terrorizes someone smaller than them. He strikes the handler hard and gets the satisfaction of feeling the jaw crack under his fist. The handler falls and doesn’t get back up.

He turns to the technician, who’s wide eyes are on the handler's crumpled against the wall. There’s blood running down the side of her face and he feels another pulse of anger. The girl doesn’t look at him. She whimpers as she crawls back to the console, moving now faster than before.

She’s scared. Of him, he realizes. The fog starts to swoop in again, but before it drowns everything out he recognizes her face. It’s younger here. This memory might have been the first time he met her even, if you could consider this a meeting.

 

 More yelling— _screaming_. He sees people lying dead on the ground in puddles of blood pouring from holes he’s shot or cut into them, and eyes staring up at him open and empty. He’s cold and he’s scared. Alone. He feels guilt, So MUCH **_crushing_ ** guilt. This is not what he wanted. This is not why he wanted to fight for his country. He wanted to stop the senseless killing, stop all those in power abusing it, hurting helpless people. He knew what he was doing when they gave him his orders. He knew something was wrong, but he couldn’t question the mission. He couldn’t... That was wrong. He could have, but he didn’t. The time he was off the ice was so brief; everything was so wrong and disorienting. It was less painful to just take his orders and go where they sent him. Something always stopped him from diving too deep into what he was doing, like a safeguard to keep him from suffering. His only comfort was they won’t _let_ him remember the things he’s done for very long.

 

“ _Is your name Steve?_ ”

He turns away from where he’s positioned his rifle and looks over his left. Since the agent got back, she’s been sitting on the floor, her back to the wall and he’s been constantly aware of her eyes on his person. She has gotten too relaxed with him over their time together. He’d say that it bothers him, but he’s not supposed to being feeling anything this intensely. He’s also ~~not~~ bothered by how young she looks. She’s too young to be on a mission like this unsupervised. He was not instructed to be her handler and they never informed him that she was his, so neither of them have supervision for this mission.

There’s no way she has the experience to be here, but he knows his observation is deemed unnecessary. To accomplish the mission they require a technician with her skill sets. That’s what the handler told him about a month ago when they were dropped off at the boarder of Russia and Heilongjiang, China. The agent is in charge of maintaining his recognitive state and gathering information from the targets’ effects. He believes this mission is the longest span of time he’s been off the ice. He doesn’t need memories to tell him that. He’s just been thinking more over this last month alone and that’s been... bothering him.

“ _Not sure_ ,” he says as goes back to watching their current target through the scope of his rifle. The target’s been speaking at some kind of conference in the building next to their current location. The agent behind him sits there quietly for a while before opening her mouth again.

“ _Well your system said your name was Steve_ ,” she says haughtily.

“ _I don’t remember._ ”

The conference room is clearing out. The opportune moment to strike is coming. He and the agent have already gathered all they needed from the target’s hotel room and the agent lifted the man’s wallet and phone from his person before he moved into the room to start his talk.

He finally feels her eyes leave him, but where that’s been what he wanted, it unsettles him instead. He looks over his left again. She’s pulled her legs up to her chest, fingers playing with one of her throwing knives and he gets the impression that she disapproves of his response.

“ _What’s your name?_ ”              

Her fingers still and she looks up at him, the unconcealed shock on her face at first boils down to calculated deciphering. “ _Alphas aren’t supposed to have names_ ,” she says guardedly. “ _Is this a test?_ ”    

For some reason he feels the corners of his mouth twitch. He decides against resisting and lets himself smile. It’s feels strange, but then comfortable all at once. “ _No, it’s not a test._ ”

She tilts her head back, her eyes measuring him. “ _My name’s Aelita._ ” She sounds like she expects him to challenge that.

“ _Ī-lee-ta._ ” He says her name slowly, sounding it out. It feels different in his mouth and he’s sure he’s never heard a name like it.

“ _Yeah_ ,” she says, now smiling back at him. “ _And you’re Steve._ ”

He shrugs and turns back to the rifle, the conference room is almost clear, their target's still shaking hands at the podium. Perfect. “Then I’ll just have to live with that,” he says, but that smile's still stuck to his mouth.

 

When Steve wakes up it’s sudden. One moment he’s dreaming—at least that’s what he thinks it is, dreaming of memories and a couple of people it’s real hard to forget—and the next, he’s there, lying on his back with a solid weight on his chest, eyes open. She’s here. Some things in his head are still out of focus, but not her.

She flinches violently in her sleep and then she’s staring back at him. He can hear her heart hammering and wonders what scared her out of sleep.

“Hey,” he says. His voice soft and he gives her a idle smile.

“h-Hey.” Hers is tight and her eyes are jumping around his face, searching and he knows. He gets it. He’s not even sure who he is right now either. But he knows _her_ and if there is one thing he’s decisive about, it’s that she’s always been able to bring more of him out than should have even been possible.

“You with me?” he asks.

Her lips hang there, parted, and her face is open and blank all at once when she nods.

He has so much running through his mind right now. He can’t tell what’s old from what’s older, there’s no chronological order to anything. He wants to say something to her to let her know—? He wants to reassure her, but it’s like he just can’t pick something. There’s too much to say, too many memories to sift through, and so many questions he still has to get answers for. He can’t just pick something out of all that to say to her. And he feels like he can’t simply lie there any longer.

He reaches flesh and bone hand out to her and cups her face, stroking her cheek with his thumb. God, he feels like it’s been a lifetime since he’s actually seen her. Her eyes slip closed and her mouth ripples into a watery smile as she nuzzles her face against him. “Steve.” She says his name so reverently. He knows he’ll never deserve it.

“’Morning,” he says, still smiling and she laughs. She laughs that laugh that crinkles her nose and makes her snort and sounds just gorgeous.

“I’m pretty sure that it’s either too late or too early for that,” she smiles as she sits up on him and he follows her. He doesn’t want to be any farther from the one thing grounding him in the present than he has to.

Both of his hands move up to her hair and he runs his fingers over her short soft fuzz. Her hands mirror him and run pleasantly along his scalp. They stare at each other both smiling like idiots, he’s sure, until her fingers catch a snag—“Ouch.” “Oh shit! I’m sorry!” “No, no it’s fine”—and then they just start laughing again, perfectly content to just sit there and bask in their freedom.

“...Steve?”

He thought nothing was going bring him out of this, but that voice cut through everything. He looks over her shoulder, Aelita tenses in his lap and her arms fall between them. Standing just inside the room, looking so pale and lost, on the edge of being overwhelmed and just keeps himself in check...

“Bucky?”

Steve’s blindsided. So many memories at once and all he was trying for is the last time he saw Bucky. It doesn’t make any sense, meeting him here. He knows it’s been too long, Bucky should be older at least, but he still looks the same as he did when Steve— 

—“ _Steve, NO!_ ”

Steve blinks and the icy ravine’s gone again, he’s back on the couch, his hands now gripping Aelita’s hips hard, stabilizing himself. She’s watching him, he can tell. When he looks up at Bucky again, she looks over her shoulder too.

“Steve?” Bucky steps closer and Steve can feel how tightly wound Aelita is in his lap. “It’s really you under that beard?” That one corner of Buck’s mouth is itching to smile and Steve exhales. He can relax a measure.

“Yeah, what? You don’t think it’s a good look for me?” he says with a cocky smile, but Steve has honestly no idea what he looks like right now. He’s not sure how appropriate it is right now, but it felt like the right thing to say it.

“God Steve, after 70 years, I’d take you no matter what hairy animal climbed on your face and died there.” Bucky breathes out like he was holding his breath and for the moment it makes _70 years_ not feel as extreme as it is. Steve’s mind wants to hold on to that fact—‘ _70 fucking years?!’_ —but something inside him keeps whispering to let it go for now. Aelita’s still tense, and he can understand why.

Bucky eyes keep on her, like it doesn’t know what to make of her, or like he doesn’t know what to make of Steve with a girl straddling his hips and... Steve feels his face heat up. This position did not feel this compromising three minutes ago.

He coughs awkwardly into his metal fist, and watches Bucky’s eyes zero in on his arm for a moment, but he’s got a smirk on when his eyes meet Steve’s—‘ _Dammit._ ’ “Bucky? I’d like you to meet Aelita,” he nods towards her.

“Pleasure,” Buck smiles at her. Aelita doesn’t budge an inch, but Bucky doesn’t look offended.

“Aelita, this is—”

“I know,” her voice is low and Steve stops. “He’s James Barnes. ‘Captain America and leader of the Avengers initiative.”

All the noise that was fighting for attention in Steve’s head goes silent. Steve’s not sure what’s going on. He doesn’t know about this ‘ _Avenger’s Initiative_ ’, but Bucky’s not Captain America. He’d feel like an egotist if he just went out and said, ‘ _No, I’m Captain America_ ’. He’s almost ashamed of admitting it, because he hasn’t been Captain America for—for 70 years. He’s not that man anymore, doesn’t have the right to be. Bucky’s not...right?

“Steve,” and Steve moved his eyes back to Bucky. “You and I really need to talk.”

“I...”

“Hi there!” and suddenly there’s another person in the room. “I’d feel like I was intruding, but this is my tower,” he says by way of excusing himself, stepping into the room from the doorway.

“And I knew you could only wait idly for so long,” Bucky sighs and runs his fingers though his hair.

“When have you ever known Stark _men_ to wait around idly,” the _Stark_ _man_ says giving Bucky a pointed look. And Bucky suddenly looks as nervous as if he were standing next to a landmine.

“Uh, Tony, I, um—Steve! Steve, this, this is Tony Stark,” he says gesturing to the shorter man standing next to him. Steve’s eyes move over him. A bunch of memories pop up, some from earlier when he was getting the explosive out of his arm, but the name rings a bell too and he’s seeing a younger, leaner man that used to talk fast too, had a lab, and... And he feels something else about that name looming over and he shuts down that thought before it becomes solid.

Tony, who he now remembers reminds him of Howard Stark, comes forward. “It’s really cool meeting the other half of the man behind the legion—Well, meeting you again now that you’ve had a power nap. Big fan of your comic books and the movies, and an even bigger fan of that arm. I hope you’re sticking around long enough I can have another look at it, but in the meantime,” he turns just slightly to Aelita. “You, little lady. There’s some stuff on that hard drive you gave me that I want you to explain.”

“What’s there to explain?” she looks insulted. “You should be able to...” she turns her head towards Steve and after a heartbeat sighs. The tension is her shoulder is marginally less as they sag. “Fine. Fine! I’ll help with the stupid hard drive. You should have just asked for a better distraction,” she says as she climbs off Steve’s lap. His arms feel empty without her sitting between them.

“Well, I was going for subtle,” Tony says briskly as she follows him over to the kitchen, a space still within view of the living room and the couch. Aelita looks over her shoulder as she following and Steve’s eyes and hers meet.

She tries to give him a smile before she turns back to Tony and says pointedly, “As subtle as a freight train.”

“So...” Bucky says and Steve realizes that Bucky’s been watching him watch Aelita.

“What?” Steve moves his feet off the couch.

Bucky leanings back against the armrest on the far side, arms crossed loosely over his chest. “So it takes falling off a train and brainwashing to get you to step out with a girl?” Bucky asks incredulously.

Steve groans and rolls his eyes heavenward. Buck laughs. “It’s not what you think.”

The laughter tapers off and for a long moment Bucky just stares, drinking in the sight of him. “That really you,” he says. “’Feels like seeing you again after waking up strapped to that lab table back in Italy. You’re a ghost Steve...” Bucky comes over and takes a seat next to him.

Steve leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Tell me what happened after the train.”

Bucky sighs. “Right after you fell, I didn’t get a lot of time to process. That bastard in the suit who blew the hole in the side of the train? He got back up and nearly shot me out after you.

“I didn’t have to think about it, Steve. I grabbed your shield again. By the time Dum Dum and the rest of the Commandos found me, I’d nearly killed the guy with bare hands,” he says staring down at his hand like he doesn’t recognize them. Steve gets a lump in his throat and doesn’t even want to know what he’ll see when he looks at his own.

Bucky looks over to him, looks like he expecting Steve to chastise him like their mums used to. Steve shakes his head and swallows. “I would’ve done the same thing were our roles reversed.”

“Yeah?” Bucky chuckles dryly. “Would you have tried to drown yourself in a bottle next?”

“Maybe,” he shrugs, “But it wouldn’t have gotten me very far. The serum keeps me—

““From getting drunk”” Bucky says alongside him and Steve cocks his head to the side.

“You know, that really should have tipped me off,” Bucky sighs. “I drank through nearly a whole pub and was barely tipsy when your girl found me.”

“My...? Peggy?”—just her name causes another wave of memories to wash over him. It would have dragged him under again if Bucky hadn’t been there with a hand squeezing his shoulder and grounding him; like Aelita had been doing all along. Maybe if Bucky had been there when HYDRA had him...

“She wanted me to lead a full on siege against Schmidt’s base in the Alps.” Buck rolls his shoulders. “I told her you were the Captain. Then she turns it around and asks me to be Captain America.”

He sighs and tosses Steve a rueful smile. “Ya can call me on it if you want. I was a real mess and sincerely pissed off that I couldn’t drown my sorrows for some God awful reason. I told her that she may already be looking for your replacement, but I wasn’t havin’ any of it. And wow, Steve she hit me hard enough to knock some teeth loose.”

He looks up at Steve through his hair. “She loved you, Steve. Made me feel like a real dick that day while she read me the riot act. She asked me if I was really going to let the people responsible for everything, the people responsible for your death, kill more people and get away with it. After that, what was there even left for me to say?

“Turns out they didn’t say you fell in the official report. They said I did. The only people that knew any different were Colonel Phillips, Peggy, the Commandos, and Howard. They really needed Captain America to lead the assault, to get everybody gung-ho about running into a fight they might not be walking away from. So I did it.”

He snorts and when he speaks again, there’s humor in his voice. “Schmidt was mighty pissed when he realized I was the one that stormed his little fortress and not you. He kept going on and on about how that Erskine guy resisted giving him everything but he just handed it all over to you. Then he saw my face and that really rattled his cage.

“Took off in this plane and I ended up riding one of their shit bikes after it until I caught up. I fought him and his stooges, but at the end of it, the Tesseract killed him. Weirdest freak show I’d ever seen, right up there with the Chitauri.”

“The Chitauri?” Steve says cocking a brow at him.

“God, Steve. After that I crashed the plane into the ice. It was either that or land it somewhere populated and get people killed. You know, and maybe I was in a real dark place still, or maybe I wasn’t, but all I could think was ‘what would Steve do?’

"Peggy and Howard tried to talk me out of it, but I wasn’t gonna listen. This was something I had to do. I turned off the radio before the crash.”

“Next thing I know I’m waking up on some kind of set of a hospital room and they send some kind of actress in. They had a radio playing the Dodgers game we went to back in May of 41. I swore at first that it was a nightmare; maybe HYDRA had found me or... And some guy with an eyepatch named Nick Fury waltzes in and tries to tell me I've been frozen for a long fucking time and the year is 2011. I nearly flipped my shit.”

Steve cocks an eyebrow at him. “He has an eyepatch named Nick Fury?”

“Dammit Steve,” he shouts and Steve laughs as Bucky wrestles him into a choke hold. Bucky feels stronger then Steve remembers.

After that, Steve listens fascinated as Bucky tells him about Gods with daddy issues, helicarriers, actual aliens, and portals into deep space. He tells him about the Avengers; Another God that’s actually not that bad once you get used to his volume, two agents he’s worked with that are crazy good at what they do and crazy weird in their off time, and a green monster that turns into this nice guys that makes great Indian food. And then he tells him about Tony Stark. He has lots and lots to say about Tony.

“So basically you’ve got it bad for him,” Steve smirks, resting his chin in the hand propped on his knee. Bucky’s always confided in Steve back in the day about how he swung both ways.

“What?” Bucky says all sudden.

“Or have you not realized you’ve spent the last 15 minute talking about him?”

“15?” Bucky asks, kind of shamefaced for it.

“16 now. Does he know that you and Howard—” but Bucky throws one of the pillows in his face.

“Shush! Yes, yes he knows. And he and his dad weren’t ever on the best of terms, and I was already in the doghouse for months after he found out, so just drop it, ’kay? We just started getting back to normal.” Steve laughs.

“Now it’s your turn, Stevie,” Bucky says, turning an expectant smile on Steve. “I wanna hear about where you’ve been all this time.”

Steve gives several attempts at starting his side of the conversation in his head. Each time he’s gotten to the every edge of something dark. He starts to remember details about missions, targets, whole families he’s wiped out in the name of an organization that took everything from him and made him a weapon to be aimed and then let loose. There’s so much blood. He has so much blood on his hands. He doesn’t know if he has it in him to tell Bucky; if only because he’ll have nothing left of who he used to be if Bucky could never look at him again when he knows what Steve’s done. He appreciates the easy banter between them. It makes it easy to pretend that he hasn’t changed.

“Excuse me, Captain Barnes.”

Steve jumps. He can’t tell where the voice come from. He would have known if there was someone else in the room with him and Bucky.

“My sincerest apologies for interrupting, but Mr. Stark is currently involved in a heated argument with Director Fury. The young lady is also threating him with bodily harm if he does not end the call immediately. If you would...?”

“Shit!” Bucky curses as he pushes off the couch and runs in the direction Tony and Aelita left in, Steve right on his heels.

“So you’re not using my tech to build weapons of mass inhalation is what you’re saying Nicky? ’Cause I got files here about something called Project Insight saying that you got three massive air crafts stored under your little headquarters in DC armed to the teeth. If you think you can bullshit a bullshitter—”

“End the call NOW, Stark!”

“That's secure information, Stark. You don't have the level clearance.”

“You think I couldn’t of hacked your servers again if I wanted to?”

“And when I get my hands on that damn boyfriend of yours, You're—”

When Steve enters the kitchen after Bucky, he feels like he’s walked into a rat’s nest. Tony’s yelling at the ceiling and the ceilings yelling back. Aelita is standing behind him with his back pressed against her, glaring at his face, a kitchen knife to his neck, and Tony doesn’t seem to be paying her any attention at all.

“Tony! You—” Bucky starts.

“Barnes, you asked me to trust you—”

“You said you wouldn't contact _anyone_ ,” Aelita hisses, pressing the knife closer to Tony’s jugular.

“Can’t you see the adults are talking,” Tony shoots her.

“Tony!?” Bucky bulks. “Aelita put the knife down.”

“Don’t touch me!” She growls and turns the knife on Bucky, keeping Tony between them.

“Stark, Barnes! What the Hell’s going on there?”

“Oh, we have company?”

Steve turns around and finds a new face looking up at him through a curly hair and narrow rimmed glasses. “Looks like a party,” he laughs tiredly. “Good evening—oh,” he says softly, glancing at his watch, “I guess it’s more like ‘good morning’.” He shrugs. “You are?” he says extending his hand to Steve, the other holding a mug that smells like something herbal. Steve’s so muddled he takes the hand and shakes it.

“Oi, Brucie-Bear!” Tony shouts over everyone. “You finally emerged!”

Bruce shakes his head. “That sounds distinctly backwards coming from you, Tony.” He takes a slurp of his tea. “What kind of chaos have you started now?”

Bucky grabs Aelita’s wrist, knocks the knife from her hands, and it clatters to the floor.

“Me?” Tony says suspiciously. “Ooff!” Aelita wrenches her wrist free and shoves him into Bucky. “Nothing,” he says flashing Bruce a smile. “S.H.I.E.L.D. is just been compromised by a secret Nazi occult that we thought died out in the 40s and taking up the mantel of big brother.”

Aelita circles back around the kitchen island where the files from the hard drive are still being projected, trying to keep something between her and Bucky, but Bucks not having it.

“What bullshit are you sprouting now, Stark?” the ceiling yells again.

“Oh,” Bruce says with a board look on his face that doesn’t fit the situation. “Is that all...”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for continuing to read my fic. I will be updating every other Friday. Please leave comments and questions. This is my first Avengers fanfiction I've published and this is the very first time I've created so many OCs in a work before. I would appreciate constructive criticism on Aelita's character, as well as how I represent the other Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. characters.

**Author's Note:**

> The main universe of "A Tale of Two Soldiers" is of the Marvel Cinematic, but I drew from the original comic books, like Tony's Extermis and it's affect. There is a whole lot of back story, how Bucky's Captain America changed the way of the story line (It's good!!). If you like it, leave comments. I'm super pensive about this fic and whether Aelita is okay. If people like it and I get through this one okay, I'll write more about Captain America Bucky and what happened when he took up the mantel of Cap and then how he steps on to the deck of the Helicarrier for the first time and fought Loki with the Avengers...


End file.
